Russian colonialization of the West Coast?

[Arkhangelsk]

Well, it would be interesting if some Native American tribes make contact with Orthodox missionaries on a larger scale . Until today there are some Orthodox Aleutians in OTL Alaska. Might we even see cossack settlements in North America in a large scale Russian West Coast colonisation ?

How a possible intermarriage between Russian colonists and native Americans, especially Orthodox converts?

I'm wondering as well, would it be possible for there to be a stronger attempt by the Orthodox church to evangelize Alaskan natives?

 

[Shnurre]

I don't think you can get that initial surge of Russian farmers. There is simply too much good land (Not as good, but it's a heck of a lot closer) for any Russian peasant to settle in Siberia and Ukraine. There also isn't going to be a market for grain back in Siberia, because it's mostly small farmers who are producing their own grain as well. In addition grain is bulky and not super profitable. You don't get people building up naval infrastructure from scratch and trade fleets to transport it. Grain trade emerges where there is already very heavy and well established trade.

What brought people over was high value trade goods like furs; You need to make the fur trade bigger somehow, or find more valuable goods (but not precious metals, that will lead to the colony being swamped) to draw people willing to make a new life there. Goods that require some minimal processing would be ideal, any random adventurer can trap and cure furs himself. You need a reason for people to start real towns, set down roots, and send for a bride from the old country (and be making enough money to afford to send for said bride).

Eastern Siberia in 18th century is by no means farmers. Most of the population is food trappers, fishermen or people working in gold and silver deposits of Nerchinsk. The Easternmost area in Siberia(excluding OTL Vladivostok area that is controlled by China before 1860s) that is somehow suitable for farmers is between Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk and that is 3000 kilometers from the Pacific Cost.

There is heavy and established trade of valuable resources namely fur, silver and gold in Eastern Siberia. It has some substantial population and lacks food supplies. In fact a cost of grain in Petropavlovsk was 3 rubles per pood while in Krasnoyarsk(in Central Siberia) 2-4 kopecks. So in Kamchatka the cost of grain was 100 times higher than in Western Siberia. While of course a demand on food in Eastern Siberia is limited(it has less than 100000 people) it can bring extra profits. Alaska and British Columbia are also rich with seals, beavers and other valuable resources and again needs substantial food supplies in order to function properly.



In fact the OTL Russian attempt to colonize California(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross,_California ) had exactly the same purpose – to supply Alaska and if successful Eastern Siberia and had the necessary Russian peasant colonists. In AU similar colony is simply founded 30 years earlier and much closer to Alaska itself(by the time there was decision to make such colony in OTL Vancouver region was already claimed by Britain) thus making Russian possessions continuous.

The first wave can be less than 100 peasant families that can be transported on several ships. And in fact it is easier to cross several oceans and sail to the other end of the world than to get to Siberia on foot(as it is the only available mean for peasant). And again such colony was in fact made in OTL only it was 30 years later, somewhat smaller and 1000 kilometers to the South.


Naval infrastructure will of course not emerge instantly. But there are some substantial shipbuilding and ship repairing capacities in Okhotsk and Petropavlovsk that are close enough for servicing the company fleet. Naval infrastructure in Oregon will emerge by 1820-1830 – 50 years since the foundation of the colony when its population will reach the level of several thousand people and will at first mostly provide service for whaling ships(large portion of which will be American).


Again the described development of the colony requires some luck but is not impossible. The differences with OTL are in several aspects but are not dramatic.

 

[iddt3]

Eastern Siberia in 18th century is by no means farmers. Most of the population is food trappers, fishermen or people working in gold and silver deposits of Nerchinsk. The Easternmost area in Siberia(excluding OTL Vladivostok area that is controlled by China before 1860s) that is somehow suitable for farmers is between Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk and that is 3000 kilometers from the Pacific Cost.

There is heavy and established trade of valuable resources namely fur, silver and gold in Eastern Siberia. It has some substantial population and lacks food supplies. In fact a cost of grain in Petropavlovsk was 3 rubles per pood while in Krasnoyarsk(in Central Siberia) 2-4 kopecks. So in Kamchatka the cost of grain was 100 times higher than in Western Siberia. While of course a demand on food in Eastern Siberia is limited(it has less than 100000 people) it can bring extra profits. Alaska and British Columbia are also rich with seals, beavers and other valuable resources and again needs substantial food supplies in order to function properly.



In fact the OTL Russian attempt to colonize California(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ross,_California ) had exactly the same purpose – to supply Alaska and if successful Eastern Siberia and had the necessary Russian peasant colonists. In AU similar colony is simply founded 30 years earlier and much closer to Alaska itself(by the time there was decision to make such colony in OTL Vancouver region was already claimed by Britain) thus making Russian possessions continuous.

The first wave can be less than 100 peasant families that can be transported on several ships. And in fact it is easier to cross several oceans and sail to the other end of the world than to get to Siberia on foot(as it is the only available mean for peasant). And again such colony was in fact made in OTL only it was 30 years later, somewhat smaller and 1000 kilometers to the South.


Naval infrastructure will of course not emerge instantly. But there are some substantial shipbuilding and ship repairing capacities in Okhotsk and Petropavlovsk that are close enough for servicing the company fleet. Naval infrastructure in Oregon will emerge by 1820-1830 – 50 years since the foundation of the colony when its population will reach the level of several thousand people and will at first mostly provide service for whaling ships(large portion of which will be American).


Again the described development of the colony requires some luck but is not impossible. The differences with OTL are in several aspects but are not dramatic.

If it's much closer to Alaska the conditions will be worse for growing grain, and to export it in any significant quanity would still require more shipping than the Russians have available. To make that shipping available, you need an earlier development of Siberia to create the kind of shipping infrastructure you need. With an earlier development of Siberia, you need more actual farmers coming over and settling down in Siberia, which in turn will lower the cost of grain, making the whole point of the Colony moot. Why not plop said hundred peasants near Vladivostok? The growing season isn't that much worse than Alaska, and it's a lot closer, minimizing your transport costs.

To get settlement really started, you need something like Tobacco or Cotton, something that requires some settlement to grow and transport, is valuable enough to be worth transporting and can't be grown elsewhere, while at the same time not being so valuable as to attract a surge in foreign settlement.

OTL the new world was broadly settled (initially at least) in four ways. The first, which only really occurred in New England, was settlement for ideological reasons. The Puritans fled the decadence of England to establish their "City on the Hill". This method doesn't work for the Russians. Despite having plenty of dissidents, there is no need for those dissidents to go all the way to the west coast. There is plenty of open and isolated land for them to settle in Siberia, as the Old Believers did OTL.

The second is plantations, as occurred in the American South and Caribbean. Here there weren't large numbers of natives, but the climate was good for crops that couldn't be grown in Europe. Thus labor was imported from Africa and set to work growing things that Europe wanted. The trouble with this method for the Russians is that you need an accessible source of coerced labor to man you plantations, without that they aren't profitable.

The Third, as occurred in Mexico and much of South America, is to simply invade and replace the ruling class with Europeans. You then exploit the natives for all their worth and systematically loot the wealth of their societies. The trouble with this method is that you need a very substantial native population base (otherwise there won't be anyone left after the epidemics) and preexisting state structures to exert your control through. There are no sufficiently advanced states or populations on the West Coast for the Russians to conquer.

Fourth, you can do as the French did, and what the Russians tried to do; Trade outposts, intermarriage with the natives, that sort of thing. The advantage to it is it's cheap, somewhat profitable, and doesn't require a huge amount of manpower. The disadvantage is that the control exerted tends to be shallow, you need to keep the native tribes friendly (which the Russians did not), and you're actual settler population tends to be fairly low, making you vulnerable to actual settler colonies, and above all, it's a very slow way to exert control. The Russians, despite hanging on to Alaska for over 100 years, never managed to get a substantial foothold this way, when the Colony was sold the Russian population was around 700, this despite several attempts to expand the colony, the French managed an order of magnitude more than that in Canada, in less time.

So to get Russian settlement of the West Coast, you really need a very early POD. The Russians need to make it to Eastern Siberia much sooner than they did, settle in force much earlier than they did (Enough so that the population there is self sustaining and expanding), treat the natives better than they did (part of what made Russian Alaska so unattractive is the natives really did not like them, and there were enough of them to be troublesome), and have more profitable reasons to remain in the area than they did.

One POD that might help is Russian trade with China. If China doesn't completely close it's borders and it's possible to trade with them from Siberia, than there is a much stronger incentive than in OTL both to settle there and build shipping infrastructure. Once you have a dynamic, self sustaining presence there with readily available transport, settling the west coast starts to look much more attractive.